Bwanika: First of all, in no way was I ordering you about the party you founded. I was simply reminding you that DFAU is meant to be a farmer’s party.
I still maintain that Ugandans have no culture of paying taxes. If you need the proof, see the saga swelling around boda boda in Kampala. URA has not done enough sensitization necessary to change that culture. Some ought to tell Ugandans that donor’s funds actually come out of taxes paid. On BIDCO, I was trying to answer your question: what is taxation meant for? I personally believe that BIDCO is a big rip off but the government decided that BIDCO has huge multiplier effects. May be. Time will tell. But remember that taxation policy is indeed competition policy. Mr. Bwanika, I recall vividly one of, if not the lasting posting I sent to Ugandanet several years ago. It was on Congo and my disgust as to how the authorities had treated UPDF soldiers who died in Congo. The government treated them as riff raffs who did not deserve a decent funeral. I believe many of those who died in Congo with the exception of a few soldiers were buried in mass shallow graves in the Congo! It is also true that their next of kin were never informed! 3. In Uganda of today, and maybe in our lifetime – there might be no positive change but rather our nation will slide into a worse situation positively than that you see in urban America- the ghettos. You know, urban America is actually very vibrant. It has its own economy and trust me, it is a huge market. Do not take what you read about urban America as facts. Many are lies. Without a doubt, what you call ghettoes are marketing opportunities and good, smart firms are taking notice. Urban America is getting better as more people move back in the downtown urban cores. You are right. Uganda may not register positive change in all parts of Uganda. The Uganda we know ended with Amin. How ironic. There is at least one good thing about Amin-Uganda then was one and not cut off in agony. We never had a Luwero or a Kony. 4. Cleaning streets might be one index, to an organised society one would say, besides i.e. some MPs offering an economic index of car ownership, and people riding on bodabodas – indeed ghettoised America is doing exactly that! What exactly is ghettoized America doing? Forget the stereotypes about urban America. 5. Now, I can’t understand why should the common men and women work for nothing while those who do nothing get hips of money they do not work for- PEOPLE SHOULD WORK FOR A PAY AS LONG IS THE STATUS QUO ABOVE. It is not working for nothing. Those “useless” men who can’t afford to pay their minimum poll tax would be performing a service in lieu. It is an alternative way and in my view, quite productive for the country at large. I see it as a win–win situation. I agree that people should work for pay, but the “useless” men have no work, yet they must pay the poll tax or else. 7. Mr. Ojambo who is westernised ? In Uganda, old people die blind in the eyes, simply because they have don’t have UG shs. 50,000 to do an eye operation, lame kids defecate on themselves since their parents are too poor to seek betters means and ways, children from war zone are sleeping on Mbale , Jinja and Kampala streets since they are refugees in their own country- Sudan refugees sleep in US 300 million $ houses rented in and around posh sub-urban Kampala – it is a grotesque and despicable scenery. It is indeed sad that local hospitals lack medicine. It is shameful that Ugandans only protest when MPs or ‘big’ men die for lack of treatment. They feel entitled to foreign treatment without paying attention to local medical conditions. But do you think abolishing graduated tax would make things better? No. It would only divert funds meant for medicine to fund other local expenditures. Money is scarce and fungible at that. I don’t buy the notion that Sudanese refugees are having it so well. They are scapegoats. I bet you, the majority of Sudanese refuges are having a hard time having ends meet. But relax, Lakwena too will soon have it easy in Kampala. 8. Which town in Uganda has no women destitute eking a living on the dirty streets selling dodo or tomatoes – so they pay taxes for what for trading on streets? Ugandan women are taking care of business by any means necessary. There is nothing wrong with selling tomatoes or dodo. Ugandan women must take care of business. They must pay rent by any means necessary. Those women are practical. They will not sit there and lament their fate. Rather they have to take care of business. Are you asking whether those selling such produce should pay the relevant local taxes? The answer is yes. If they are transacting their activities in maintained places, they have to pay local levies. 9. UPE never started with NRM- in fact the colonialist in their civilisation stance - Education was mandatory and up to well into 1989 those structures were still in existence! Amin never destroyed them. Are you kidding? Education in Uganda has never been mandatory. The only time it has been universal is under UPE. But one of UPE’s weaknesses is that the authorities failed to make it mandatory [it should have been made illegal for anyone to leave school before the age of 16 or 18 or whatever]. If the number of UPE pupils is declining, it is because there is no penalty to pay since UPE is not mandatory. Today if you were to visit the homes of Uganda’s elite, you will find perhaps not one, but two or even 3 under 16 year olds toiling away as house girls/boys. These kids should be in school under UPE. But because it is not mandatory, Uganda’s urban elite including politicians simply go to the villages and collect pupils who are supposed to be in school to do double duty in urban areas. Mark you, if peasants were to pull their 13 or 10 year old to chase birds from Rice fields, the authorities would be at them, but when the same kids are pulled from school and taken to Kampala, Jinja or Mbale as house girl/boy, there is no fuss. Please give credit where it is due: UPE is not perfect, I wish it was mandatory, but the elite won’t do it because it would deny them the cheap labor that makes their homes function. Talk of people working for nothing under extremely hostile conditions, it is the under age house girl/boy. It is not an exaggeration to say that the greatest cases of child abuse in Uganda take place in the posh homes in urban centers where the under age house girl in particular is overworked; routinely sexually abused, sometimes by all the male in the households-from father, uncle, sons name them, but guess what, the lady in the house simply looks the other way as the molestation goes on as if it is not her business. That is precisely why the elite in Uganda will not make UPE mandatory. Where else would they get such cheap labor? Funny, because some of those abusing under age girls/boys as house helpers may claim to be fighting for human rights in the public, yet in their private homes, they are the leading perpetrators of such abuses. The times you invoke are gone and gone forever. They will never come back again. Never. That is the truth. 11. It is an discourtesy of you to say Ugandans are lazy- people who do not depend on the state to meet all their worldly needs and want it is an insult indeed. Who financed the destruction of Jinja, kampala, Luweero , Gulu – is it not tax money? I never said lazy. What I said is that we have too many idlers expecting “things” from the government. It is time to change people’s incentive. I can say it again. Most of those living on the margins in urban areas are there because they despise farming, but expect fresh butunda, menvu, dodo, lumonde etc. And they expect them cheap. That is unacceptable to me. We must empower the farmer and not the idle urban dwellers. That is the best weapon against rural poverty. But I insist that Ugandans have not yet developed a culture of valuing taxes. If they did, they would not be rushing to big men to intercede on their behalf. If those boda boda people in Kampala do not want to pay taxes, they should not be in that business period. And the intervention from the President’s office makes matters worse. Look at Kenya, where such intervention is not entertained and you will begin to appreciate why taxes must be paid. Ojambo ----------------------------------------------------------- Spela poker mot verkliga människor över Internet. Över 40 000 spelare online http://www.multipoker.com -------------------------------------------- This service is hosted on the Infocom network http://www.infocom.co.ug
